Given that the Royals’ public relations department has not tweeted about Yuniesky Betancourt since the end of the season, I am not quite sure why this topic ruminated in my mind for most of the weekend. I do have to say that I have half expected something along the lines of ‘Yuniesky Betancourt is third among active shortstops in scheduled off-season batting cage hours’. That, of course, would bring the inevitable re-tweet by a radio host who should know better trumpeting ‘See! I told all you basement dwellers that Yuni’s the real deal!’

Truthfully, that is only a slight exaggeration of the just plain silliness that surrounded Yunieksy Betancourt last year. Silly is the operative term, because here is the complete and total list of positives by Betancourt in 2010:

He hit 16 home runs (6th among all shortstops)

He drove in 78 runs (5th among all shortstops, because ‘real’ baseball men know that RBI is telling stat)

He played in 151 games

That’s it – three bullet points. After that, any support of Betancourt was generally responded to with criticism of other players. To the best of my recollection, after crowing about Yuni’s 16 home runs, these were the common phrases of support for the Royals’ shortstop:

The Royals don’t have anyone better (this is actually valid, but no one was really thinking Yuni should be benched. Instead, we all were simply pointing out that he probably didn’t warrant a tweet and press release every time the ball managed to find his bat)

Billy Butler hits into too many double plays

Zack Greinke is disinterested

Alex Gordon is a bust

Okay, have you noticed it is Monday and I’m a little bit cynical? It is, after all, 11 degrees here in Huskerland and the soccer moms that drop off their kids at the same time I drop off my middle daughter really annoyed me this morning.

I will go on record right now as being totally understanding of why the Betancourt trade happened. The Royals were peeved at Mike Aviles for not revealing his injury in the spring of 2009 and, quite logically, were concerned that he might not ever be able to play short again. Hey, right now, we don’t know if Mike’s arm can hold up to an everyday diet of shortstop.

At the time of the acquisition, Jeff Bianchi was breaking out….in High A ball. As it turns out, perhaps the single greatest reason to acquire Yuni, was something no one knew yet: that Jeff Bianchi would miss all of the 2010 season with Tommy John surgery. Although you can give Dayton Moore no credit for this, it certainly made me more accepting of the deal after the fact.

If I was Royals’ GM (and you all know that I wish I was), this deal is probably not made. Given where the team stood on July 1st of 2009, I might have soldiered on with Luis Hernandez and, yes I’m going to say it, Willie Bloomquist. That said, with Dan Cortes all but stalled out in AA ball and apparently something of a troublemaker/confused kid/assclown, I don’t hate this deal. Even if Cortes becomes an effective power reliever for the Mariners, the Royals have not been irreparably harmed by the presence of Yuniesky Betancourt.

That said, let’s not fool ourselves: Betancourt is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

In 2010, Betancourt’s slash line was .259/.288/.405/.692. He hit 29 doubles and 16 home runs (in case you hadn’t heard) on his way to compiling an OPS+ of just 88 and, according to Fangraphs, a WAR of just 0.6. Mainly because of the home run total, several of which were admittedly clutch bombs, it led some to believe this was the best season by a Royals shortstop since…well, in a long time.

That is kind of the classic ‘woe is me, faithful Royals fan’ lament which ignores the fact that there were two far better seasons by shortstops in the last seven years. Notably, Mike Aviles in 2008 went .325/.354/.480/.833 with an OPS+ of 121. He smacked 10 home runs in 102 games and 41 extra base hits in total on his way to a WAR of 3.7.

Prior to that, a guy named Angel Berroa in 2003 played in 158 games. He hit .287/.338/.451 with 28 doubles, 7 triples and 17 home runs (and 73 RBI for those traditionalist out there). Angel threw in 21 steals and posted an OPS+ of 101 with a WAR of 2.7.

Heck, there is a shockingly small difference between what Yuniesky Betancourt did last season and what Angel Berroa did in 2005, when all of us were ready (understandably) to run him out of town. In 2005, Berroa had 37 extra base hits, including 11 homers, on his way to a very substandard line of .270/.305/.375/.680. Betancourt’s 2010 line, once more: .259/.288/.405/.692.

So, can we really just get over this Yuni-love?

Now, Yuniesky Betancourt will be the Royals everyday shortstop to start 2011 and, contrary to the criticism I have leveled above, that is fine with me. I say this trusting that the Royals are smart enough (I know, that’s a leap of faith) to know that Mike Aviles’ needs to be in the lineup somewhere. I advocate Betancourt at short because I think it is unlikely that Chris Getz can hit a lick simultaneously with Wilson Betemit hitting like he did last year AND not taking an ax out to play defense.

Maybe at some point this year, the Royals will tire of Betancourt’s well below average defense (use metrics or your eyes, IT IS BELOW AVERAGE) and Tony Pena Jr. like on-base percentage and give Mike Aviles a real chance to show if he is the guy that played short in 2008 or not. All the while, we can eagerly watch Christian Colon’s second professional season and hope the currently tenuous similarity to Troy Tulowitzki’s career continues to hold true.

Should Colon not be ready by 2012 or not be able to stick at short. Should Mike Aviles not be able to handle the load defensively and should, as is likely, Jeff Bianchi is also not ready or able. Well, then we might hear more of the idea of picking of Yuniesky Betancourt’s option for 2012. That would be an absolute unequivocal mistake.

Yunieksy Betancourt is not that good. He has been a marginally serviceable stopgap on a couple of bad Royals’ teams. Let’s let the campaign to make him anything more than that end with final game of last season. Dayton Moore is currently correct to be looking for middle infield prospects in any trade for Zack Greinke. Let’s hope, unlike the pr machines that surround the club, that Moore does not fall prey to both his ego and moderately decent home run total during the 2011 season.

Yuni now? Okay.

Yuni later? Stop it.

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Comments

Written by Jeff Needham about 4 years ago.

Assuming our other top flight prospects do reasonably well once they make it to the SHOW then there is one thing that would really put the Royals over the top and and division championships would follow. And that would be if Christian Colon’s career path can resemble ANYTHING like Troy Tulowitzki’s. I sincerely hope so.

Written by Abh about 4 years ago.

Or, in a more depressing turn of events, Grant Green’s career could follow that of Tulo.

Written by Andrew J Overton about 4 years ago.

My hope is that Aviles will be hitting well enough at third base to push Yuni off short for Moose’s likely call-up in June. Since Dayton doesn’t rely as much on Sabermetrics as scouting, that means he needs a higher avg, more extra base hits/rbi and demonstrate strong, accurate throws from third base. Since Dayton has stated his preference for team control and contract size, Aviles beats Yuni in that department hands down. I don’t see Colon arriving in the bigs (if he does at all) until 2013 or 2014. The best situation would be Aviles taking ss back over in the second half of this year and playing well enough to hold onto it over the next couple of seasons while still under team control.

Written by Nick Scott about 4 years ago.

I’m saying it now, there is an almost 100% likelihood that the Royals pick up Betancourts option in 2012.

Written by Clark Fosler about 4 years ago.

Abh – Well played. I’ll be very honest here and say that I was all set for the Royals to draft Grant Green UNTIL Aaron Crow fell to them. At that point, I was ‘all in’ on Crow. Hopefully this won’t be the ‘bad pick’ it currently looks like. Even if Colon becomes an average second baseman, we won’t be too worried about Grant Green IF Crow is throwing 200 innings of competent work in 2012.

Written by Kyle about 4 years ago.

Isn’t there about as much talk of moving Grant Green to 2B as there is with Christian Colon? I sure hope that Crow figures things out this year. I hate seeing him waste a spot on the 40 man roster in High A.

I know there are better stats to compare players than RBI, but they are still an important stat. You have to take advantage of the oportunities given to score runs. Isn’t the main point of baseball still to score more runs than the other team? I think the Sabermatricians have taken the stats a little too far.

Written by Clark Fosler about 4 years ago.

RBI is still relevant, but probably need to be taken in the context that while Yuni was batting in a decent number of runners, he was providing little ‘run scoring’ potential to the guys hitting behind him given his abysmal (I mean really, really, really awful) on-base percentage.

Written by Clark Fosler about 4 years ago.

When it comes to run production, maybe a good state is Runs Created. In that context, Betancourt created 61.2 runs in 2010. Billy Butler, in just seven more games, created 100.8.

Keeping in mind that Yuni played in 151 games, here are some other Runs Created totals:
DeJesus 57.7 in 91 games
Aviles 55.9 in 110 games
Betemit 53.1 in 84 games

Written by Deep Dixie Blue about 4 years ago.

The Dream is dead: Brendan Ryan was traded last night to the Mariners for an A+ pitcher with control problems and a 6+ ERA. Ryan would have been a clear and substantial defensive upgrade at SS, and while his bat is suspect, there’s a chance he could actually exceed Yuni this year. Ryan had offseason surgery to correct the wrist problem that plagued him last year while there’s a good chance that Yuni regresses from his numbers last year. For their careers, Ryan has an OPS+ of 76 while Yuni is at 84.

Yuni has become a lightning rod on the Royals for the stats vs scouts debate. While scouts (at least the Royals’) continue to evaluate him as above average in most every tool, advanced statistics consistently peg him as far below average.

I’ve quoted this before, but this sums up the Royals perfectly:

John Henry, the billionaire commodities trader and owner of the Boston Red Sox, once said that “People in both baseball and the financial markets operate with beliefs and biases. To the extent you can eliminate both and replace them with data, you gain a clear advantage… many people think they are smarter than others in baseball, and that the game on the field is simply what they think it is, filtered through their set of images and beliefs. But actual data from the market means more than individual perception/belief.”

DM clearly believes that his scouts are smarter than the market data.

Written by Thomas Reese about 4 years ago.

I was really disappointed the Royals didn’t make more of a push for Brendan Ryan. The Mariners got him for very little.

But alas, Ryan is not a Royal. I completely agree with giving Aviles a chance. Why not? And Andrew is right, hopefully he gets pushed to short anyway when Moose comes up in June. And as much as I hate to say it, I agree with Nick: I strongly believe that GMDM will pick up the Yunigma’s option in 2012.

Written by Clark Fosler about 4 years ago.

Just as well on Ryan. I’d be sitting there enjoying my third beer of the day during the Royals’ second game of the season and Ryan would make a bad throw. The 22 year old kid there whose Dad bought him a LaBlatt Blue whould shout ‘I thought we got you for defense!’ Followed an inning later by ‘Go back to Nebraska!’ after Alex Gordon grounds out.

As you can see – I’m a little frustrated with the casual fan today.

Written by gbewing about 4 years ago.

Clark who is that radio host who retweets shill comments? I hope it’s not Denny -the only Royals anouncer with any credibility left- sound like a Lefebrve comment but he’s mostly TV

Written by Abh about 4 years ago.

Ryan’s glove would have been nice, but my hope is that KC would be willing to look into a trade for Matt Garza. Nothing would raise the price for Greinke quite like getting the next best option under wraps in KC! I know the Rays would want a lot, but I wonder if some combination (or all) of Duffy/Johnny G/Melville/Sample would do it? Not sure what the Rays needs/desires are, but three years of Garza would really take the edge off losing Zack, and the prospects received in return should make up for those we would ship out…. or Zack/Garza as a 1-2 combo in the rotation… that would be okay as well.

Written by Kyle about 4 years ago.

I like your thinking, abh. But Garza is going to end up being more expensive than Greinke is right now. I would hate to give up any of those players. Melville and Sample would be selling low, as they haven’t quite figured it out. And I really don’t want to see any of the big 4 lefties go before they get a chance in KC.

You guys don’t think that signing Francoeur and Cabrera will make Greinke want to stay? HAHA!!

Yep, we’re stuck with Yuni so we have to hope that he can have another season like last year’s. It is possible that Safeco, a terrible hitters park, was suppressing what little he can do. The odds of him being as productive next year aren’t high (the odds of any player hitting three clutch GSHR’s in a season are well nigh zero).

I think most observers were okay at the time with taking Aaron Crow over Grant Green despite the Hochevaresque resume. Even if you still preferred Green you had to concede that Crow was a reasonable choice.

Lee going to Philadelphia is a dream that GMDM didn’t dare dream. Now he will have noth the Yankees and Rangers coming to him for Greinke. Now if he can just show some patience for once in his life he could get a real haul.

Written by Clark Fosler about 4 years ago.

gbewing – Nate Bukaty was the lead radio culprit, but most seemed to eventually give in….of course my guess is that was a requirement to get Dayton Moore on your show now and then.

Written by Abh about 4 years ago.

I don’t think Crow was a bad pick. It would just be gut-wrenching to watch Green become a star if Colon struggles.